by M. E. Betts
"Not close," she said, her tone flat and her gaze deadpan as she looked Daphne squarely in the eye. "Why?"
Daphne shrugged. "Just asking," she said. "I can sense a certain attraction between the two of you."
"Maybe," Shari said.
"Just saying," Daphne said. "Not trying to get into your business. And I know relationships are important, especially these days. All types of relationships."
"Yeah," Shari said, putting her arm around Daphne's shoulder and tapping her on the head playfully. "And you'd be one of the ones at the top of that list."
"Aw, thanks," Daphne said. It was apparent to Shari that she was trying to inject sarcasm into her voice, but Shari could see that she was beaming. She knew that she was one of a small handful of people whom Daphne had ever been able to call her friend. Likewise, for Shari, Daphne was like the little sister she never had.
Within five minutes, the group was approaching the parking lot outside of the stadium.
"What the hell are we looking at?" Phoebe blurted, referencing a crane situated somewhere to the opposite side of the stadium. Suspended from the crane, and dangling just above the middle of the stadium, was a propane tanker trailer. It was situated lengthwise, more or less parallel to the side walls of the building, by a four-point harness.
"Jesus," Anthony muttered, "they meant business."
"This is going to be like something out of an action movie," Hugo breathed, his eyes wide with awe.
"If we can figure out how to do it, it will be," Shari said.
They made their way toward the front entrance, where a short, rectangular section connected to the stadium itself. The entire facade of the entrance was sealed with steel shutters. As they looked down to the end of the lot, they saw that a tanker truck full of gasoline had been backed up to within about two feet of the building.
"What is it with this place and fuel tanks in weird places?" Daphne muttered.
"They wanted to spray the place down," Hugo said. "They needed an excelerant to make sure that when the tank blew, it would set the whole place on fire. Look where the semi's parked--it's parked where you can get onto the roof of the place from the top of the truck." He climbed the ladder mounted on the rear of the gas truck, pulling himself onto its roof. "And there's a ladder on the roof of the building," he called down. "This gas was meant to go inside the building," he said as he hopped down from the ladder to the ground. "We need to figure out how they were going to do it."
They approached the building, and it became clear that the shutters were badly bowed from the weight of tons upon tons of undead attempting to force their way out over the last few months.
The fuckers have the patience of Buddha, Shari thought. She watched as the undead inside pushed the steel out visibly farther. One of the undead stuck a hand out through the space that was created. After a moment, physics won out and amputated the hand as the metal resisted the force and closed around the limb.
"Shit," Daphne breathed, "they just might make it out of there."
"Not if we can help it," Anthony muttered. "We're gonna finish what that settlement started."
Phoebe approached a metal bench surrounded by sections of overgrown garden.
"It would be nice to know what their plan was," she said, picking up a hunting knife, damaged and dulled, from the bench. "Because at this point, I'd say we're pushing our luck being here."
"Guys," Daphne called from the cab of the truck, "you might want to come look at this."
The rest of the group made their way to Daphne, congregating on the drivers side door of the cab. Daphne hopped out and pointed to a very large hose mounded up in the rear space behind the front seats.
"Is that what I think it is?" Shari asked.
"Fire hose," Hugo replied.
"And nozzle," Daphne added.
Hugo peered in more closely. "Help me get that thing out, guys."
Anthony climbed into the back seat, scooping out armfuls of hose in heavy heaps.
"There," he said as the end of the hose slipped out of the truck and onto the ground. "That's all of it."
Hugo studied the fittings on the end of the hose opposite from the nozzle.
"There are some fittings on here," he said, picking up the end of the hose and carrying it over to the unloading valve on the side of tank. "I don't know how to actually begin the process of unloading the fuel through the hose, but if we could figure that out, we'd be good to go."
"I just want to make sure we're on the same page," Shari said. "The plan is to get up onto the rim of the stadium, spray down the inside with gas, then blow up that propane tank?"
"That seems to be the plan," Hugo said.
"Alright," Shari said, "just making sure I understand."
"I never thought I'd have to burn up half the town's population," Anthony said.
"Yeah," Shari said. "There's literally still a black cloud hanging over the town from what we did yesterday."
"We don't technically have to do it," Phoebe mused. "But then again, everything is set up and waiting for someone like us to come along and finish the job."
"Speaking of which," Shari said, "I wonder what happened to whoever drove this truck out here."
"I don't know," Hugo said, looking inside the cab, "but maybe it had something to do with the blood in here."
"Blood?" Shari echoed. "Where?"
Hugo pointed. "All over the inside of the passenger door," he said.
"Huh," Shari said. "No body, so...."
"So everyone be on the lookout," Anthony concluded.
"Is it ever okay to not be on the lookout anymore?" Phoebe countered. "I can't even take a dump anymore without being plagued by the irrational fear that something's gonna come up out of the toilet bowl to bite my ass."
Shari laughed. "Irrational, unless we're talking about an outhouse or portable toilet or something. Then all bets are off."
"Strange times we live in," Phoebe lamented. "And I never even got the chance to grow up while the world was still normal."
"Who are you kidding?" Anthony teased. "You were never in any danger of growing up, normal world or not."
"Ha-ha," Phoebe said, rolling her eyes. "I was grown-up enough to make that flamethrower, wasn't I?"
"What about the tanker?" Daphne asked. "You have any technical knowledge, anything to give us a clue as to how to start the unloading?"
"Not my forte," Phoebe said.
"I can have a look at it," Hugo said, "but I can't promise anything. I don't even know whether or not we'll need to start the truck."
"Have a look," Anthony said, "and I'll take the nozzle end up to the roof. That's where we'll need it if the gas does start to flow." He climbed up, hose wrapped around his forearm. "Keep an eye on the hose," he called down to Shari, "don't let it kink up." Shari flashed him a thumbs-up.
Daphne and Phoebe looked around the interior of the cab, scavenging items and trying to find clues as to the operation of the tank.
"So," Phoebe said, "how exactly did you two get lost, anyway?"
"Lost?" Daphne repeated. "Who said we got lost? We got surrounded, trapped--not lost."
"Oh," Phoebe said. "Okay. How'd you get trapped, then?"
"Shit happens," Daphne mumbled. She sounded defensive, and Shari thought that was perfectly understandable. Phoebe tended to be confrontational. Shari tended to the hose, helping to untangle it as Anthony climbed higher, while Daphne continued her defense. "Keep in mind, we came from Kentucky. That's a lot of distance to cover, so all in all, I'd say Shari and me have a pretty good track record."
"Whatever," Phoebe said.
Shari stood sipping coffee from her thermal cup while Hugo checked hoses and valves. Daphne and Phoebe conversed, mostly on Phoebe's end. Anthony crossed the roof above, returning to the truck to descend the ladder.
"How's it going?" he asked Hugo, who shielded his eyes as he peered outside from the interior of the truck's cab.
"Good news, I think I know how it works," Hugo replied.
"Bad news, it turns out I do need the keys to start the truck."
Anthony rubbed his face. "Fuck beans," he hissed in frustration. "I guess we're done here, people."
"Unless anyone here knows how to hotwire the truck," Hugo said, looking at Phoebe hopefully.
Phoebe shook her head. "Nope," she said, pointing to the shuttered entrance. "And if we're aborting this mission, we should probably hurry up and do it. I'm pretty sure our presence is agitating them."
The group started the walk back to the radio building, heading east.
"At least we can say we tried," Shari said.
"Yeah," Hugo agreed. "It's a shame. They had a pretty epic plan."
"Can't we still try to blow up the tank?" Shari asked. "Wouldn't it be better than nothing?"
"How do we do that?" Daphne asked.
Shari shrugged. "I don't know. Shoot at it?"
"Would that work?" Anthony wondered, his gaze doubtful.
Phoebe shook her head. "Most likely not, or at least not as well as you'd think. And the gunfire has the chance of just putting a hole in the tank and leaking the propane out, instead of sparking enough to blow it up. Then the tank and its fuel is wasted."
"Renders the tank useless," Hugo concurred. "If we were to try to do this, we would have to spread the gas around inside the stadium. It's the only way it'll work."
Anthony gazed back behind them, at the crane with its cargo dangling just above the packed stadium. "This sucks," he said. "I really hate to walk away from this."
Hugo's gaze seized on something down the street, roughly 300 feet ahead of them. He narrowed his eyes, peering more closely through his large, dark sunglasses. His head spun around to regard the tanker truck, then back down the street.
Daphne frowned. "What are you looking at, Hugo?" she asked.
"There's a body down there," Hugo said, pointing. "His hat has the Smithgas logo on it, same as the tanker."
"Jesus," Shari said, shielding her eyes to look where Hugo was pointing, "you can see the logo on his hat from here?"
Hugo nodded. "I have close to perfect vision."
"Let's have a look," Anthony said, starting toward the body.
"I'm right behind you," Shari said, starting after him with her bow at the ready. They jogged down the mostly empty street, arriving at the body Hugo had pointed out.
"Smithgas," Anthony said, "sure enough."
The body had turned to jerky in its time lying on the pavement in the late summer sun. There were large holes ripped through the chest, along with one smaller hole through the temple. Shari noted that he held a nine millimeter pistol in his right hand.
"Assholes," she said, crouching to look more closely at the wounds on his chest, clearly made by much higher caliber rounds. "Shot him in the chest and left him to either turn, or turn his gun on himself."
"That's why we call them sadists," Anthony reminded her.
"Yeah," Shari said. "So let's see what he's got on him."
She crouched to check the left pockets of the corpse while Anthony checked the right. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, discarding them on the asphalt.
"No one wants smokes permeated with dead guy," she said.
"Probably not," Anthony said. "They're cigarettes, not crack."
They finished searching the body, still coming up empty-handed.
"The fuck did he do with those keys?" Shari mumbled, her eyes scanning the street in the direction from which they had come. "The street was pretty clear. If he dropped them somewhere between here and the truck, I sure didn't see them."
"Me, either," Anthony said. "And I made a point of looking."
Shari looked back at the corpse, cocking her head to the side. "Hmm," she said. She grasped the undead man by the belt, giving it a sharp tug to pull the body aside. She was surprised by how the corpse had become in its dehydrated state. As she dragged him a few inches to the side, she and Anthohny heard the muted jingling of keys scraping the pavement.
"A-ha!" Shari cried, reaching down to grab the keyring and throw it to Anthony. "Those are for you."
"Good thinking," Anthony said, starting back toward the rest of the group, waiting nearer the stadium. "Let's get these to Hugo so he can do his thing."
As they neared the stadium, something to Shari's left caught her attention. It was a guitar in the backseat of an abandoned vehicle, and she approached cautiously to get a better look at the instrument.
"What are you looking at?" Anthony asked.
"This guitar," Shari said.
"Do you play?" Anthony asked.
"No," Shari said, "but my dad was a guitar buff." She peered through the rear window of the SUV, reading the inscription on the guitar. "Holy shit," she said. "This is a really rare Gibson. My dad would've crapped his pants just to be able to hold this guitar."
"You want it?" Anthony asked.
"Nah," Shari said. "Like I said, I don't play. And it's rare, but it's not like I can sell it on eBay for a hefty profit anytime soon."
"Phoebe plays," Anthony said. "I'll surprise her with it. She was saying just the other day how she misses her guitar from back home, and that her calluses are almost gone on her fingertips already." He attempted to open the rear hatch of the SUV, but to no avail. He peered through the driver's side window, noting that it and the rear doors were also locked, but that the passenger side door was not only locked, but left wide open. He walked around to the passenger side, which was in the grass due to the vehicle having gone off the road, slamming into a light post, where it had come to rest. As Shari waited on the street, he approached the open door. As he leaned in through the front seat, unlocking the back door manually, he felt a sharp, stinging pain near his Achilles tendon. He looked down, puzzled, to see what was left of a disembodied human head, neck, and partial torso, now undead and nearly melted into the overgrown grass. Anthony resisted the urge to vomit, realizing that the only part of the zombie that he could clearly pick out as human was the open jaw and its rows of rancid teeth. He gazed in disbelief as the jaws continued to move, albeit almost imperceptibly. He lifted his pant leg and lowered his sock, revealing a well-defined wound in the shape of the jaw, blood trickling lightly from the small holes punctured by the incisors. He reeled, his thoughts racing.
I'll tell them, he told himself. I'll tell them, just not right now. He opened the back door, reaching behind the backseat to retrieve the guitar from the trunk.
"You all right?" Shari asked as Anthony appeared from around the vehicle with the guitar strapped around his neck.
Anthony nodded. "Yeah," he lied.
He and Shari continued toward the stadium.
"Good eyes, Hugo!" Shari said, tossing Hugo the set of keys. "Now let's hope the one we need is on this ring."
Hugo hurried to the truck, trying the keys in the ignition until one of them turned, the semi rumbling to life. He exited the cab, walking to the side of the truck to check the hose and its connections one final time.
"I think we're good to go," he said. "That upper ledge goes most of the way around the stadium. If we drive the truck around the building, we can really make sure we spread that gas around inside there."
"At least the outer perimeter," Phoebe said. "If we get the bleachers, everything in the middle will catch once the outside goes up in flames."
"Especially when that propane tank blows," Hugo said. "I can't believe I'll get to see that. This is gonna be epic."
"I'll handle the hose," Anthony said, causing Phoebe to snort in sophomoric amusement.
"I'll drive," Phoebe told Hugo, "if you do the unloading."
"I'm not even going to ask how it is that you know how to drive a semi," Anthony said, beginning his ascent to the ledge above the entrance, hose in tow. "I'm not surprised, for one thing. Besides, time's a factor."
Phoebe took her place behind the wheel while Hugo began the unloading process. Shari and Daphne kept a general on the area around the truck as it began its trip around the building. Sixty feet above, Anthony
trained his hose on those undead nearest the entrance, preparing to douse them with excelerant.
"Hold it steady, Anthony," Hugo warned from below. "Here it comes."
Anthony sprayed the entrance thoroughly, arcing the gasoline past the ticket booths and toward the nearest bleachers.
"Done!" he yelled down when he had saturated everything within his reach, letting the liquid trickle over the ledge and into the stadium until the stream came to a complete stop. He climbed down, first from the roof to the truck, then to the ground from there.
"That worked well," he informed the group. "Drive about halfway down the length of the field. It should give me the range I need."
The group managed to work their way around the stadium before an hour had passed, and before the undead could manage to breach the front gate.
"Alright," Anthony said as he hopped down from the tanker for the final time, "this place is flammable as could be. I made sure to spray the propane tank itself, too."
From the nearby entrance, the metal of the front gate shifted and groaned, stretched to its limit with the weight of the undead horde inside.
"What's next, then?" Phoebe asked, turning off the truck's engine.
"What's next is, you turn that engine back on," Anthony said. "The four of you get in and get as far away from here as you can while I finish this."
Phoebe smirked, narrowing her eyes. "Say what?"
"What are you talking about, Anthony?" Shari asked.
Anthony turned his back toward the group, reaching down to lift his pant leg, revealing the angry, red welts resulting from the bite he had suffered. The light wounds were already beginning to show signs of infection, as the marks themselves were puffy and the surrounding area swollen and pink.
"I didn't see it 'til after it bit me," Anthony explained. "It was basically just an open jaw laying there, attached to a chest and little else. No arms." He snorted in morbid amusement. "It was damn near melting into the ground. I can't even believe it was capable of turning its head or moving its jaw." He shook his head, his eyes shiny. "I just never saw it."
Phoebe whimpered. "No," she sobbed, "you were supposed to go to Chicago with us."
Landmine, Shari thought in Kandi's voice, the word echoing through her mind as she choked back tears.
